


The Sinking of the Titanic

by justbygrace



Series: As It Should Be [32]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Canon verse, Dimension-Hopping Rose, F/M, Pre-Journey's End, brief mention of Tentoo/Rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 12:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13295133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: A dimension hopping Rose meets the Eleventh DoctorPrompt Fic





	The Sinking of the Titanic

The dimension canon has landed her in some strange places, but she's never felt more out of place in jeans and a leather jacket than she does when she lands in the middle of a black tie dinner on board a cruise liner. She can tell right away she's missed the mark by at least a couple of decades, but it's thirty minutes till the canon is ready to go so she wanders the decks and ignores the odd looks she's getting; she's had more than her fair share of odd looks over the years. A life jacket on the wall reads "HMS Titanic" and her breath stutters even as she continues her journey; she can't...won't change history. 

She hears him before she sees him: voice loud and expressive, fancy words bouncing off the walls, and she walks towards him because it seems like the thing to do. He's tall with a tweed jacket and bow tie and she leans against the wall and watches him, a feeling she can't shake nipping at the back of her brain. He's talking to a girl with red hair who he abruptly ignores when he sees her, his eyes going wide and his voice dying in mid-word. 

They stare at each other across the room, across galaxies and planets, and she swears she can feel the turn of the earth beneath her feet. She doesn't have to ask and so she doesn't and he doesn't seem capable of speech at all, mouth opening and closing. His eyes shutter after a moment (after an age - what is time when a Time Lord is involved?) and her heart twists at the sight. 

There are a dozen questions she wants to ask (doesn't want to ask), but visions of reapers dance through her mind, so she bites her lip and says nothing at all. He's talking again, all movement and limbs and floppy hair, and she doesn't interrupt him, doesn't do anything at all but lean against the wall. His companion (that's who the redhead is and she's more jealous than she wishes she was) keeps glancing over like she wants to say hi, but doesn't because _he_ doesn't. She wonders at this new persona, at the circumstances that made him into this, and she stares at the button in her hand like it might be the answer.

He hears the beep of the canon at the same moment she does and his head jerks up. He grins at her and it's forced and full of pain and she hesitates; after all, she made him better once, she could do it again, but she learned the paradox lesson the hard way and she slams her hand down. The room whirls out of focus, but it's years before she forgets the look in his eyes as he watched her disappear. (Years later, wrapped around her very own Doctor, she murmurs the story in his ear and they mourn together for what _he_ doesn't have, but _they_ do.)


End file.
